5 Plugins To Encourage User Generated Content On Your WordPress Site

It is likely that there are about a hundred companies or agencies offering the same service as you do. So why would the people choose you? Besides the fundamental law of probability or luck, what do you have, that is in your favor?

Marketing of course!!

It is important to provide a compelling service to engage as well as retain your users, but to reel them in; proper marketing is pivotal. Now, this read will be focused on the online aspect of marketing and how your users can help you build a profound market presence.

So What’s the Catch?

Well, if you want inside news then you should know that 51% of company executives already know the power of the content market. But they also complain that due to lack of time there are unable to go with it. Furthermore, it can get a bit expensive to have content strategists, marketers, and writers engaged full time with your business.

Is there a Way to Deal With This Problem?

One possible and highly effective way for handling content marketing is to let your customers do it for you. Yes, this is a SERIOUS post! Think about it; your customers are already talking about your services are a product. Don’t you do the same when you buy something new and like it?

Furthermore, think about how many tweets or pictures are uploaded every single second. FUN FACT: 6000 tweets are made on Twitter every second.

This is ample opportunity of which you should be taking an advantage. Currently, 22% of the companies around the world do. You can be the next. Incorporate user generated content into your content marketing strategy and see the change it can bring.

Is There Any Advantage To User Generated Content?

Long story short – YES! But if you still want the long story then read on. A portion of your user base does make visual as well as commentary content about your service or product and launch it into the internet. This can be very much powerful and more powerful than the thought provoking articles you wrote staying awake whole night.

In the later case, it’s you telling the people that you are good. People might listen, but there is going to be an inevitable veil of suspicion. However, if it is the consumers celebrating your product, then it will make your brand more trustworthy. Think about the awesomeness to have your customer do the talking.

Okay, So How to Get Customers On Board With This Plan?

The majority of the people are going to make an online testimony about using your product. You don’t have to motivate them to take this action. What you have to do here is simply get these people to submit their content over at your website. Doing this is pretty simple. Enable a means for front-end content submission and make it intuitive and user-friendly. After that, your users will thank you for invaluable user generated content.

Here are some tips you can apply to make sure that you get your customers to write that review, make that commentary, or provide that happy selfie.

Advertise that you will Accept Articles and Blog Posts from your Users.

Showcase the pictures and videos your customers have submitted to your website.

71% of users feel comfortable buying a product after reading the positive reviews. So encourage your users to leave a review on your website.

Add a section on your website regarding business directory or classifieds to which your users can contribute.

Take all these steps, and it will be a one time work in creating a source of the enormous amount of relevant content, regularly updated by your loyal customer base.

Now that you know what to do, and how it will be beneficial, it is time to see how to do this. For WordPress, the best way to allow as well as encourage user generated content would be with the help of plugins. So without further ado, here are 5 best plugins to increase user generated content on your WordPress site:

WordPress Plugins To Encourage User Generated Content On Your Site

#1. AccessPress Anonymous Post Pro

If you plan to give your users an experience which as similar to that of the WordPress Visual Editor then you can’t go wrong with AccessPress Anonymous Post Pro. The plugin will provide you with a plethora of features and customization options. With this, you can give as much as freedom you like to your users or restrict them to certain functions if you deem that to be necessary.

Some of the great features offered by the plugin include a responsive form design, flexibility in post submission type, Unlimited customizable fields, Image and rich media Integration, Tooltip guides for users, ability to set post-form submission redirects, control over character limits and even a list of Form Templates. Feature wise, the plugin has it all, and it is also straightforward to use.

#2. CRED

As discussed above, the main means of encouraging user generated content is by making things as much as intuitive and user friendly as possible. Now with CRED, this philosophy is a bit broken. It can be a little bit confusing for customer to use at first, but the plugin does offer a variety of excellent features. Judging all the feature provided in the plugin, you might find it be most useful when you want user submitted product listings, directories, memberships, or on a classified site.

The plugin is specifically built for gated content submissions and comes with features like input validation checker, spam protection, payment integration, ability to incorporate user or member role assignments, provide users with their profile to manage and much more. There is also a feature which allows providing an expiration time to the content and a built in system for email notifications to the admin.

#3. BuddyForms

BuddyForms is packed with features up to the brim, and it is about to spill. You can consider it to be overkill, but at the same time, not many plugins offer such a perfect means for handling front-end content submission. There are also a variety of pricing tiers which gives you the freedom to choose only the features you will need. By the way, all the pricing ranges are very reasonable.

Now if you are asking what features you are signing up for, then for starts you will have Advanced Form Elements, Post Type Customization, Front end revision control, user role management and much more. There is also an inbuilt option to integrate eCommerce, allow for admin email notification, and all these come with an easy to follow Form Wizard guide which will help you get the most out of the service.

#4. Communities

The appropriately named Communities is a WordPress plugin to help you create an on-site community. Installing the plugin onto your website will give your users the freedom to connect as members of a community and start commenting, sharing thoughts and content through message boards, wikis and much more. It is also straightforward to use and allows users to provide content through the front end interface seamlessly.

Some mentionable features of the plugin include the option to build discussion boards, wikis, communities and much more. He users can also create their community if you activate the option and they can even edit or submit wikis. There are also plenty of message board moderation tools and secure community management to make things easier for you and not only your users.

#5. Frontend Publishing Pro

Frontend Publishing Pro comes with a free as well as a pro model. The free version is well featured and will suffice for most of your requirements, and if you want even more, then you can go on and make the upgrade. This is, in fact, best if you want to experiment with user generated content on your site and want to see how it can benefit your brand.

The free model gives you features to moderate the content. For example, you will get options to set restrictions regarding word counts, tags, links, bios, and more. You can also set user specified publication rules and embed shortcode for form placement. All these features can be very useful for controlling and managing the user generated content that is coming into your website.

And if you make the upgrade then you will also be getting a responsive form design, cross theme compatibility, a drag and drop builder, unlimited form creation, post publication management, PayPal integration, Copyscape integration, captcha security and a whole lot more. Now the price for the pro version is a bit on the expensive side, but with the level of control you are getting, it can be considered to be a worthy investment.

Over to You

So now you know how user generated content is beneficial for your marketing and how to execute this on your website. Now as you are endorsed in the philosophy, also write a comment on this article and let others know if you found it helpful. Mention the plugins which worked best for you and even suggest other plugins which were not mentioned in the list. This will overall increase the scope of the read and help other users as well.